As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems such as servers and workstation servers often employ an onboard graphics controller embedded on the motherboard that is accessible to an out-of-band remote access controller of the system, such as an integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) available from Dell Products L.P. of Round Rock, Tex. In such a configuration, the remote access controller is configured to snoop the video frame buffer output from the embedded onboard graphics controller and to provide the same video display information to a remote virtual console user as is output by the embedded video controller to the local system display monitor. The system Basic Input Output System (BIOS) running on an x86 processor provides a setup option to allow a user to disable the embedded onboard video card in order to enable a discrete or add-in (PCI-e) graphics card that has been installed in the system. Traditionally, this setup option is active only if there is a discrete graphics card installed in the system which is not accessible to the remote access controller in the same way as the embedded onboard video controller. When the embedded onboard video has been so disabled, it remains disabled at the beginning of system boot and the video option read-only memory (ROM) from the discrete graphics card is the only one being loaded during power-on self test (POST) so that the POST display is only output from the add-in video card to the local display. Video output is never simultaneously provided on both the embedded video controller and the discrete graphics card during pre-booting time (i.e. the time during startup before booting the operating system). This conventional behavior is acceptable for local users who are sitting in front of the local monitor. However, this provides a poor experience for remote users and administrators. Since the embedded onboard video controller is disabled in the POST, a remote administrator working at a virtual console will see nothing on the screen, preventing the remote user from doing any remote trouble-shooting activities or configurations using BIOS setup or Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)-based pre-boot software (e.g., such as Dell Lifeycle Controller available from Dell Products L.P. of Round Rock, Tex.).
One type of conventional x86 processor based workstation blade operates to first use the embedded video controller (with no display on the discrete video card) to generate the boot video console as video output from the system, and then to use the discrete video controller (with no display on the embedded video card) to generate the operating system (OS) video console as video output from the system. This type of conventional workstation blade uses the following modes for Remote Console operations: User Mode (default setting), Admin Mode, Server Mode, and Setup Mode. When the current setting is changed from Setup Mode to User Mode in the BIOS setup for such a conventional system, the system video display will prepare to make the switch from the embedded onboard controller to the discrete graphics card. After this mode has been so changed in the BIOS setup, the remote console output is still visible from the embedded controller via an out-of-band management controller through the POST process and up until the operating system (OS) begins to load. During this window of time before OS loading, the discrete graphics card is disabled and there is no display on the discrete graphics card. Once the OS begins to boot up, the video display will then switch to the discrete graphics card before giving control to the OS. Video output is never simultaneously provided on both the embedded video controller and the discrete graphics card during pre-booting time. Rather, only the embedded video controller is used to generate the boot console, and the discrete or add-in video card is used to generate the OS console.